The rise of the German tennis hopeful Justin Engel is impressive: In the summer of 2023, the DTB-Youngster ranked among the top 2000 in the world for the first time, less than a year later there was a place in the top 800. The 17-year-old is currently ranked 354 and is therefore clearly the best under-18-year-old in the tennis world. The next step towards the top of the world is still a bumpier.
The year 2025 started for Justin Engel: at the M15 tournament in Cadolzburg, the German celebrated the fifth tournament victory of his young career without losing a set. In Nussloch (M25) this followed shortly afterwards only in the semi -finals. A very remarkable yield, it wouldn’t be one but.
In order to master the next step and finally to target the extended tennis world tip, Engel must also have success away from the lowest profit tournament level. So far, however, the high -flyer there is still difficult.
Even before his success in Cadolzburg, Engel tried his luck at the Challenger in Oeiras (Portugal), where he failed in round one in two sets on 32-year-old Russian Alexey Vatutin (number 329 of the world rankings).
The next attempt at a Challenger followed at the end of January, in Koblenz the Swiss Mika Brunold (number 309 in the world rankings) proved to be a much too high hurdle at 2: 6 and 2: 6. It came even thicker in Manama (Bahrain) in mid -February when Alberto Bronzetti from Italy swept angels in the qualification from the court. Since Bronzetti had never been listed among the top 1000 of the ATP ranking at the age of 26, the 1: 6-4: 6 bankruptcy of a small sensation was like.
German tennis hope has great goals
It went better at the beginning of the week in Pune, where Engel was able to force the currently strongly performing American Andre Ilagan (number 380 of the world rankings) to his knee in the first round of qualification. The main field nevertheless missed Engel because the Belgian Michael Geerts (number 311 of the world rankings) was able to prevail on Monday.
Including qualification rounds since his acclaimed ATP debut in Almaty in Kazakh in October 2024 in two wins and seven bankruptcies at the Challenger level-the expectations of the newcomer were in Almaty, where angels were two in round and the youngest player since Spanish Superstar Carlos Alcaraz, who achieved this feat at an ATP tournament, gave up enormously.
Engels rise was discussed by the media. On the one hand, the native of Nuremberg was calm, but on the other hand it was not behind the mountain with his big goals: “I want to become number 1 in the world!”, Engel, for example, made clear and added to the “kicker”, he hoped that it It may even have been granted to form a new “Big Three” in the world tennis together with Jannik Sinner and Alcaraz.
However, Engel also emphasized that it was clear to him that the way to his goal was a longer.
Philipp Kohlschreiber, who has been looking for angels since October 2024, was a bit more reserved. However, in conversation with the dpa, the ex-professional certified the potential to close the gap that gaps in the German men’s tennis behind the world ranking runners-up Alexander Zverev.
By the way, angels are currently separating 7941 world ranking points from the German industry leader or 344 places. An enormous gap that should be an incentive for a 17-year-old with great dreams than a deterrent.